Recently, I was given the opportunity to accompany a customer to India for a one-week visit. My company, FileNet, has a software development partner in India called HCL Technologies, located in New Delhi. This was a classic “meet and greet” visit, mostly to assure our customer that HCL was more than two guys in a garage and could support our mutual efforts. As is typical in trips like this, the real action takes place outside the Powerpoint presentations.
In preparing for the trip, I take the advice of prior FileNet travelers to India and check out the Centers for Disease Control web site regarding India. It is a fairly alarming place to visit (India, not the site). Malaria, typhoid fever, hepatitis, waterborne parasites, uneven sanitation, and other goodies await the unprepared, so I took the CDC report to my doctor and he immediately gives me a polio booster, a typhoid shot, a prescription for malarone (malaria preventative), and a prescription for Cipro (all purpose bug killer). I am told to avoid drinking the water, no ice, eat nothing that isn’t peeled or cooked, and wash my hands thoroughly before meals. Thus protected by the impregnable shield of American medicine, I board my Air India flight from LAX on Saturday night and settle in for the long journey to Delhi via Frankfurt – 18 hours flying time.
I land in Delhi at 4 AM India Standard Time on Monday, somehow losing Sunday in the process. As promised by HCL, a uniformed driver awaits me and steers me through the waiting mob of people to the car. As he loads my bag in the trunk, I head over to the right side of the car and open the door to hop in. To my jet-lagged amazement, there’s a steering wheel in the way. Oops – India spent significant time as a British colony (through 1948), and they’ve adopted the British driving habit of navigating via the left-side of the road. I’ll definitely leave the driving to them!
I had made the decision before departing that it would be best if I reserved a hotel room for Sunday night, despite my actual arrival Monday morning. This turns out to be an inspired thought since the hotel is quite full and the prospect of waiting in the lobby until Noon for a room is clearly a bad idea. The hotel, the Sheraton Maurya, is a 5-star hotel near the embassy district (yes, Delhi is the capital of India). To my amazement, former President Bill Clinton is in town, indeed staying at the very hotel I’m registered in. He’s here to attend a state wedding, also held at the hotel, and at 5 AM the party is still going on. Since I am a tad grubby looking after so many hours en route, I decide to forgo a visit with Bill and head for my room to recuperate.
Later in the day, I phone HCL and speak to my contact person, Raj, about the plans for the week. He offers to meet me in the hotel for dinner at eight, which sounds fine to me although I have zero appetite. India is 13.5 hours ahead of California, so everything is a little upside down. Raj meets me at the restaurant and he points out that this is authentic Northwest cooking (oh boy, salmon), which throws me a bit until I realize he means Northwest India. The style is a form of barbecue that one is to eat with fingers from a shared plate. I surreptitiously check to see if Raj’s fingers are as clean as mine, and decide to rely on the prophylactic power of American medicine – not the first time as it turns out. I allow him to order off the menu and he immediately declares that we shall have no chicken during my visit. Apparently, the avian flu H5N1 has invaded India’s borders and the population has immediately abandoned chicken and eggs in any form. This is significant, since India is a huge producer and consumer of chicken. Given that no beef or pork are served either, this limits the protein options considerably. So we eat lamb and shrimp, both nicely prepared, and lots of Naan, the Indian flat bread that looks and tastes like a chewy crepe. Everything is spiced, which would normally intrigue me, but tonight I’m just trying to get through the meal. At the end of the meal, as a sort of palate cleanser, everyone is to take a pinch of anise seed, put in the palm of your hand, add a pinch of sugar crystals, and pop it in your mouth. It’s actually kind of neat, except for the shared pinch bowls. Oh well, when in Rome….
Joining my colleagues the next morning, our driver picks us up at the hotel and we set off on our 8 mile journey across Delhi to HCL’s office building in Gurgaon. Now we see the true challenge of Delhi. It is a sprawling city with paved roads for the most part, yet clearly inadequate. The main roads are 3-laned in each direction, but everyone ignores the lane markings and simply jams as close as they can to the vehicle next to them. So three lanes are actually five to six lanes for the most part, except when you hit a traffic signal, and all vehicles bunch up as if they were pedestrians at a crowded street corner, jostling for position. The vehicles are amazingly diverse – bicycles, mopeds, motorcycles, 3-wheeled taxicabs, minivans, compact cars, mini-trucks, buses, large trucks, and just to throw you for a loop, the occasional tractor and camel-drawn wagon. But what really amazes is the people – they are everywhere. Walking along the road, congregating in the median, dancing through traffic, perched on vehicles, humanity in droves. Many women dress in colorful saris, others in silk pant-suits, still others in western dress. The men generally dress casually, with some in robes, but most in jeans. The second thing that strikes me is how young everyone is – I learn later that the median age in India has been dropping for years and is expected to be less than 30 in two years.
As you can imagine, with the poor road system and the crowds, it takes us all of 45 minutes to travel the 8 miles to Gurgaon. As we exit the main drag and hit the side streets for the last half-mile, I get my first look at the other denizens of the streets, the sacred cows. They walk freely through the streets, rummaging for fodder wherever their nose leads, and generally ignored by one and all. The whole thing reminds me of a video game – things appear normal, and suddenly a bizarre creature enters the scene in a completely random way.
HCL’s building is pretty typical for India, a rather ugly three-story affair with no architectural adornment at all. A few scraggly plants grow in a bed out front, but the overall impression is drab, dusty, and lifeless. It’s odd to see this given the great energy and genuine friendliness of the people. But apparently the culture is not focused on landscape beauty – perhaps because it costs too much? Or maybe the cows eat the plants?
I won’t dwell much on the meetings at HCL – I doubt you’re interested in Quality Assurance practices and software development techniques. We run through Powerpoint presentations for 2 days, generally getting the answers we seek from HCL, and late Wednesday night the customer heads for home. I could have done the same, but if I’m going to be in India, I want to see some India besides Delhi. Fortunately, a mere 120 miles to the South is the town of Agra, home of the Taj Mahal, an iconic monument that symbolizes India to the rest of the world. HCL agrees that it is worth a visit, and graciously arranges a driver and a companion to accompany me on Thursday. I’m told it will be an all-day affair. It’s a bit hard for me to believe that one would spend that much time at the Taj, but maybe there’s more to it than I think.
So at 6:30 AM our driver Deepin picks me up at the hotel with Ashish, an HCL employee, along for the ride. I’m as prepared as I can be, with camera, backpack, bottled water, trusty hat, mosquito repellent, and a good pair of walking shoes. We navigate the traffic as before and finally find the main highway south. Within an hour, I realize why this is an all-day affair. The road is actually good, 2 to 3 lanes in each direction, a divided highway, well paved and clearly built for a speedy journey. There is less traffic than in Delhi, but the nature of the traffic is just the same, with the added bonus of farm equipment using the road as well. Deepin is a great driver, moving in and out of lanes with ease, flashing his lights to warn people, but he finds it impossible to get up any speed. The trucks are maddeningly slow and ponderous, often straddling the lane markers, and as we zip around them, we suddenly come up on the tail of a slow moving tractor, or worse yet, a bicycle! Ashish and I are in the back seat, which is fine with me, and we talk of this and that, making conversation as we try to ignore the impending accident of the minute.
Ashish is just a year older than my son Joe, which is a little disconcerting – made me feel old somehow. He’s getting married in a couple of months, and willingly shows me a picture of his fiancé. I tell him she’s good looking and ask how they met. He hesitates, shrugs, and tells me that this is an arranged marriage. He’s known her for several years, and the respective families decided that this would be a good match. I’m a bit nonplused by this, since I assumed that arranged marriages were no longer in vogue in India, but I am clearly mistaken. Ashish is quite comfortable with the whole idea – says it makes life easier. He may be right!
Four hours later, at the scintillating average speed of 30 MPH, we reach Agra. It turns out to be a good sized town, which means that it is a distilled version of Delhi. The traffic is chaotic, jammed roads, cows everywhere, dirt, dust, and crazy pedestrians. Every time we hit a traffic light and stop, our car is swarmed with beggars – they can spot a “rich white man” in the back of a car in a blink. Children, women with babies, young men, they all come at us like locusts. They knock on the windows, point to their mouths, point to the baby, making pathetic noises. I am distinctly uncomfortable and look at Ashish for cues on what is appropriate. Ashish good-naturedly shoos them away, and tells me that it is against the law to give to beggars. As if that will stop them…
We muddle along, stopping along the way to pick up a local tour guide, and find ourselves parking about a mile from the Taj complex. The three of us (Deepin stays with the car) pile into a tiny cab and are transported to the gates of the fort that surrounds the Taj. Ashish buys the tickets – about $5/person, and we pass through a security check, complete with metal detector, to enter the complex. The fort is made of a kind of ocher colored stone, with some nice ornate touches, arched doorways and porticoes. There is landscaping as well (shock) and nice walkways. Given we’re mid-week, the crowds are relatively small, which is a blessing really. So what about this place, the Taj Mahal?
At the time
of its completion in December 1631, India was part of the Persian Empire. The Taj Mahal was built by the fifth Mughal
Emperor, Shah Jahan, as a mausoleum in memory of his beloved and favorite wife,
Mumtaz Mahal. She died in childbirth,
reportedly while producing her 14th little Mughal. But there’s no denying that Shah Jahan was
truly smitten by her, as he immediately hired 20,000 workers to create this
monument to his wife. It took 20 years,
plus a whole lot of marble and precious stones, and I have to say that the
result is truly spectacular. The
architect was a Persian, but he utilized many other specialists of the time to
build the dome, stonework, gardens, and outlying buildings. The one aspect of the Taj that is most
striking is its symmetry. Every feature
has a corresponding opposite identical feature, whether a tower or a piece of
artwork, or an abutment, or window, or door.
Even the flanking mosques are identical mirror images of the other. The gardens in front of the Taj are likewise
geometrically laid out, which simply adds to the overall effect.
The guide points out
two minor exceptions to this manic symmetry.
One is by design and the other is by spite. By design, the four minaret towers surrounding the domed building
in the center are all canted slightly outward, away from the dome. You can see it if you are looking for
it. This was done to minimize the
damage if an earthquake were to strike.
Hopefully, the minarets would fall away from the Taj center and preserve
the dome. The other exception is inside
the mausoleum itself. The raised tomb
of Mumtaz Mahal is perfectly centered under the dome as you would expect, but
right next to it, jarringly, is another raised tomb, completely breaking the
symmetry of the interior. This tomb
belongs to the caliph himself. Why was
this done?
After the Taj was
built, Shah Jahan embarked on part two of his grand project, a second Taj
Mahal, all in black marble, to be built across the river from the first
Taj. This second mausoleum was for
himself. The two shrines would be
linked by a “bridge of sighs”. Well,
after nearly draining the treasury to build the first Taj, the Shah’s son said
“no way, Jose” and pulled off a coup, deposing the Shah and throwing him into
prison down the river. The black Taj
project was abandoned. The Shah died in
prison eventually, within sight of the Taj Mahal. At the Shah’s death, one of his daughters pleaded with the son to
allow her to bury their father with honor.
He agreed to let him be buried next to his wife in the Taj Mahal, but
refused to have the interior redesigned to accommodate two biers. So the Shah’s tomb was plopped down next to
his honey without further ado.
The guide takes me to
the front door of the Taj and we are instructed to don little booties (or
remove shoes and socks), since it is considered an insult to wear shoes in a
holy place. There is absolutely no
photography allowed inside the Taj, but the guide has a mini-flashlight that he
uses to illuminate the precious stones inside the building and demonstrate that
every carved marble frieze is identically paired to another on the opposite
side of the building. It is noisy and
dark inside the building, with kids whooping to hear their voices echo (the
same the world over). Much of the
exterior stone inlays are actually verses of the Koran in Arabic lettering up
and down the building. Since my Arabic
is a bit rusty, I take his word for it.
All in all, I spend
probably 3 hours on the grounds, enjoying the cool shade trees, taking pictures
from different angles, and admiring the layout. There is a movement afoot to name seven wonders of the “modern
world”, which represent iconic structures that currently exist. Among those proposed are the Eiffel Tower,
Statue of Liberty, St. Peter’s Basilica, and of course the Taj Mahal. Having seen the others, I will gladly vote
for its inclusion in this lofty group.
It is truly a remarkable building.
We eventually find our
way back to Deepin and his driving machine, and off we roar north to
Delhi. The return trip is much like the
morning demolition derby, and somehow we avoid killing anyone. The winning entry in the vehicular parade
for sheer lunacy is a motorcyclist with a lady sitting side saddle behind him,
holding on to the driver with one hand and a squirming baby in the other. There they go, weaving through traffic – one
false move or hard stop and it wouldn’t be a pretty sight. We arrive back in Delhi exhausted at the
effort, and I wasn’t even driving!